Thursday, 14 August 2008

JANE HOLLAND ON MAKING A POEM

Go to Jane Holland's Raw Light blog for an insight into her creative process, writer's block, and the safe birth of her poem 'Fifth'.

A quote from her post:'You have to remember that I hadn’t written a poem for over three years when ‘Fifth’ suddenly came to me, out of the blue. In such reduced circumstances any poem is miraculous. So I was reluctant to mess too much with those early drafts, however pedestrian, in case I jinxed my return to poetry.'

It was Jane who wisely advised in another post that 'first drafts are not holy relics':'They will still exist, perfectly intact, after you have rewritten the poem twenty-five times. So release your grip on the poem; let it move in whichever direction it chooses. If the redrafting process unnerves you, keep the first draft at your elbow and use it as an anchor; however ‘out there’ subsequent drafts become, your original impetus can remain steady.'

5 comments:

Yes, I guess each poem is different and requires a slightly modified approach to revisions ... and sometimes confidence can play a major role in deciding which approach to take.

Writing 'Fifth', I was on my knees, creatively-speaking. I hadn't written a single line of poetry for some years, due to a complete loss of confidence in myself as a poet. These days I do indeed advocate a much looser and freer approach to revision than I could have managed during the writing and revising of this poem.

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Nuala Ní Chonchúir was born in Dublin, Ireland; she lives in East Galway. Her third novel, Miss Emily, published under the name Nuala O'Connor, is out now from Penguin USA, Penguin Canada and Sandstone Press (UK).

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